


Readers and Listeners

by q00zan



Category: HEARTBEAT (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Funny, Hanging Out, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 20:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19217416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/q00zan/pseuds/q00zan
Summary: Eve, Klein and Nyx visit Beck and Io in Harbei. They hang out and have a nice time. Perhaps, they learn something new about each other.





	Readers and Listeners

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading the new fanfic!  
> This one is kind of cute and nice. I just had a couple of bits from this imagined in my head, so I decided to make it a full thing, sort of. Just a very relaxing read for those who might like these characters together.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

“It’s been a while since we last visited Harbei, hasn’t it?” Klein asked her conjurer.

“I think! I’ve been waiting for this,” Eve responded, packing up things in a little backpack. They were getting ready to leave quite soon.

“You didn’t take much time to visit all other towns… What’s that, you got a gift or something? For whom?” the cat sith glanced over the young ambassador’s shoulder curiously.

“Y-you’re so nosy today, don’t you think? Huh?” Eve said loudly, zipping up the backpack hastily and getting one of the sliders stuck on the teeth in the process. She nervously drags the thing up and down, hoping it’d finally do its job properly.

Klein scoffed and walked away. She had to get Nyx. The problem was - you could never tell Nyx about the fun plans for the day in advance if you wanted her to come along. She’d probably just disappear: run away from home for the day, hide under the bed, sometimes in the closet. The cat sith found her fellow mogwai in the kitchen, having a large mug of coffee. The Reaper immediately felt Gremory’s presence, her eyes darted around, found the target and drilled Klein with a stare, peeking above the hot mug raised to Nyx’s lips.

“Oh n-no. Go away,” she muttered.

“Nyx! We’re going to Harbei!” Klein said, smiling, as she walked over to her friend and leaned onto one of the cupboards with her elbow a little bit. Charming.

“I said… G-g-go. Away. Housecat. I’m n-not coming,” she responded, then took a large sip from the mug.

“Don’t upset Eve. You need to shake the bones sometimes a bit. You barely go out. We’re going to visit Beck and Io. Remember them?”

“... Yes. I d-d-do remember them. D-do I really need t-to go?” Nyx puts the mug down after chugging almost all of coffee from it. She rubs her temples slowly.

“I’d appreciate that. Moreover, that wisp sort of likes hanging out with you. Won’t be boring,” Klein concluded, stretched her back a little bit as she stopped leaning on the cupboard, and was about to leave.

“I know, but… Well. N-n-nevermind. Count me in. D-do I need to look good?”

“Whatever.”

 

Eve spent a while ironing her attire for the day, made sure none of it has any kind spots, smallest imperfections. Satisfied, she got dressed, grabbed her backpack and set off together with her two mogwai. They used the underground tunnels built by the tanuki - it’s become usual practice after their biggest journey ended months ago. Eve did visit Beck right after their victory, and she also chatted with Ondo quite often online, yet never was in the right spirits for a visit. Now, Klein seemed very proud of her conjurer and generally pleased that they would see to Harbei in general - overseeing the lands here was still their responsibility, even if unspoken.

Harbei became even prettier than before. Quite a number of mogwai moved in after the conflict had been finally resolved. They helped the locals create and tend to new gardens within the town, make living better for those recovering in Harbei. Perhaps, one could say it was the healthiest town in this part of Solum.

Some people recognized them in the street as they headed for Rebecca’s house. Eve seemed anxious, yet smiling and waving back. She was the sweetest, treating everyone with respect and kindness - it would seem as if the journey they had to go through way before barely changed her. Klein was happy to know that. Nyx? She felt fine as long as the conjurer was safe. She had no needs. Perhaps, except for coffee.

All three of them stood in front of the door and did nothing for a bit. Each one of them assumed someone else would ring the bell.

“I’m g-g-going to die of old age like this…” Nyx grumbled and reached for the bell. It played a funny, but loud noise, almost like a tune. Could be heard from the inside. What they also heard were excited, quick footsteps getting closer.

The door swung open immediately, and Io looked outside, then stared at the three guests.

“Who’s there?!” she asked.

“It’s Eve, Klein and Nyx!” the young conjurer responded immediately.

“... You h-have to ask first, open l-l-later,” Nyx whispered, looking away for a bit, somewhat uneasy when Io was too close.

“You weren’t invited... “ she said, smiling in a very mischievous, obviously joking way, “Ha-ha! No! You were! I’m just kidding! Come on in. Becky’s gonna be so glad you guys made it.”

“Thank you, Io,” Klein politely responded, then grabbed Nyx by the collar and dragged her along inside.

 

“You guys gotta take your shoes off, leave them here, here’s the rack. Yeah. Gotta keep the house clean,” the wisp said and hurried away, “I gotta tell Becky you’re here!”

It wasn’t a problem for Klein and Nyx to just change their attire a little bit. With a little snap of the fingers, both mogwai had slippers on. Eve seemed to have some trouble with this - she looked a bit disheartened, taking off her nice, well-cleaned new sneakers.

“I kinda wanted to show them off…” she said, putting them on the rack.

Nyx rolled her eyes so hard she could almost see the inside of her head, and Klein just smiled really wide, looking at her conjurer.

“It’s fine. We could probably go outside, maybe, then you could let them check the shoes out. They’re pretty cool shoes, Eve. Let’s go now-”

“Hey, what’s up, guys?” Beck interrupted all of them, finally appearing downstairs. She was dressed as usual, and looked quite happy to see all three of them. “I’ve missed you lot. Klein. Nyx. Eve, hello, hello…”

She went on to shake their hands - with a quite firm grip, Nyx hissed a bit when her palm was squeezed.

“So, yeah, make yourself at home, alright. We also cooked some tasty stuff with Io today, so if you’re hungry - don’t be shy. You guys plan on staying for long?” Rebecca asked and smiled, waiting for a response.

“D-d-don’t care. However long…” Nyx mumbled.

“As long as we do not bother you two, of course,” Klein stated, slowly walking around the room.

“Yeah… Yeah! As long as we don’t bother,” Eve finally spoke up.

“Thought you guys were planning a sleepover though?” Ondo suddenly mentioned, after a little pause. Eve couldn’t respond - it was unclear whether she forgot or regretted that she had agreed to it a week ago.

To break the silence, Nyx asked:

“You g-g-got coffee?” heading straight for the kitchen.

“Oh, you wanna fire up that engine? Wanna stay active? No wonder you’re strong… Let me show you!” Io enthusiastically offered her help and almost latched onto Nyx. Displeased grumbling could be heard.

 

Beck dragged over an extra chair to her computer - the desk it stood on seemed quite well-cleaned and tidy, probably prepared for today’s visit. Ondo turned the computer on and waited for it to load, sitting on her chair, fumbling with her thumbs. She looked back and saw Eve just standing still there.

“Why, come on, take a seat. Wanna play some games or something? We could chat while we play right?” Beck asked, then leaned in to search for something in her PC.

“Yeah! Sure. I don’t play much of video games though,” Eve finally moved, then sat down, exhaling with a bit of relief.

“It’s alright. No worries.”

“Hey, Beck, sorry I interrupt you two, could I have a look at that novel you started writing a while ago? You still at it?” Klein suddenly asked, appearing behind them. She rested her hands on Eve’s shoulders and squeezed them gently, hoping to make her conjurer relax.

“Oh. Oh yeah. It’s like, on the kitchen table somewhere. You can also listen to some music if you want, that’s cool with me. I know you’re an attentive reader. Don’t… tell everyone what happens in it, though. Yet. I’m actually thinking of publishing, maybe?” Ondo explained. She gave Klein a nice, warm smile. Eve kept staring at her without knowing.

Soon enough, Beck launched some fighting game. Apparently, she liked the RPG genre, although it was quite obvious that a good fight was pretty much perfect for this hangout. She pulled out a couple of controllers, hooked them up to the computer, then handed one to Eve, who eagerly accepted. She also somewhat brushed her hand on Rebecca’s, and then immediately pulled it away, shuddering.

“You OK?”

“Yeah! Just felt a bit breezy,” Eve explained, like it was nothing.

“Oh. Might be the air conditioner. Kinda lazy to turn it off right now, sorry. Anyway. You ever played Battle Deadly 10?”

Eve stared at the screen absentmindedly. There were two scary-looking men on the screen, both still, frozen moments before punching each other, apparently.

“... Not really. But it looks cool.”

“It’s pretty cool. It’s kinda violent though, you alright with that?”

“Yeah. Sure. It’s just violence in a game anyway, hah. Let’s fight then!” Eve said, quite excited. She was feeling as if she was regaining control of the whole situation. Although, she was perhaps the only one recognizing this visit as a “situation” anyway, everyone else was, in fact, calm.

They went into character selection screen. Beck already knew who she wanted to play as, and picked a character who looked like a buff, scary skeleton - somehow possible. “I will harvest your pathetic soul… perhaps,” the frightening hero’s catchphrase played. Beck seemingly muttered the same words very quietly, and smiled all proud. She was a fan. Eve was scrolling and browsing through the characters for quite a bit, almost hitting the time limit. She kept passing by one character who was a young woman that looked a bit like Beck, and Eve just kept pausing for a little bit each time she saw her. In the end, she sighed and hit the “random” option which soon blessed her with some ridiculously bland brown-haired bloke, who upon selection said: “Hey, it’s me, Bobby. Let’s rock’n’roll.” Eve felt a bit silly for not choosing someone cooler to match Beck.

“Oh, damn. Bobby. That’s a very strong character. Kind of hard to play, though…” Beck said, watching the screen, impatient for the fight to start. She sounded very serious.

“O-oh, that’s cool. Yeah. I like a challenge. Hah.”

Their characters were placed in a fiery, dangerous-looking arena. As soon as the bell rang, Beck’s skeleton fighter lunged at poor Bobby and kept beating, and beating, and beating the guy up in a horrifyingly long combo, all the way until Eve actually bothered to starts mashing the keys on her controller - modest at first, desperate and fast later. She managed to save herself from the onslaught only when her health hit around 10%.

“Wow, you’re so good at this…”

“Keep fighting, Eve! Don’t worry. Just fight,” Beck said, before pressing several buttons in a quick succession, executing some power attack that even was followed by cool animation on-screen. Her character hit Eve’s fighter, and then “finished” him in a brutal, horrible way.

Eve didn’t expect that and almost covered her eyes at first, flinching.

“Oh my gods he did not just do that!” she muttered. Then she heard Beck laugh.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, was that too much? Ha-ha. It’s cool. You’ll get much better, that’s for sure,” Ondo said, putting her left arm over Eve’s back and resting her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

Staccato felt weird and calmed down immediately, subtly shuffling a bit to the right on her chair.

“Come on, check some of your moves in this menu. Here. No, here. Yeah. Check them out. Then let’s get a rematch.”

 

Nyx was staring at the coffee machine boiling, faintly whistling and groaning as it processed all within to make the Reaper a nice cup of the hot drink. Behind her, Io stood, constantly looking over the woman’s shoulder with a large smile on her face. She was getting a bit too much into this, and soon she realised that, and stepped a bit aside. Still, she was too excited to meet Nyx - couldn’t even sit down at the dinner table.

The Reaper had no problem with relaxing, though. Despite her looks and manners, she was as cold, as calm as she’s always been since the great feat was complete. Sighing, she took a seat at the dinner table and rested her cup on it. Only then did Io sit across the table from her.

“So. Yeah. It’s pretty cool here in Harbei. We trained a lot with Becky, and we also helped all the new people living here plant those plants and stuff. And do the gardens. It’s, like, not as easy as you may think at first - that’s a lot of work. It was cool though! That’s like a workout, too. An additional one. And it helps you, a lot. I think I got much more powerful from helping them. Because… you know. I did help you guys a bit back then, right? And we fought, and stuff. Now I can also be cool and help around. Right?” she ranted on and on, then looked up at Nyx.

The ice wisp was taking a sip of her hot drink. She looked up at Io, a bit confused.

“I sort of spaced out f-f-for a bit. What?”

Io froze in shock, unable to speak for a good minute.

 

Klein finally got the stack of papers containing the extent of Beck’s work on the book. The cat sith quietly walked over to where the large music player stood, got down, sat on the floor and got ready to read - she put on headphones and got some music finally playing. She dusted her hands a bit - the thing was apparently not used quite often. Klein quietly turned pages, skimming through the parts of the story she had read long before, simply wondering if anything changed. She soon reached the spot where the new part began, and started reading attentively, although sometimes she would look up from the papers to take a look at Eve and Beck playing the video game.

 

“Ah… I lost again. Damn it. I’m sorry Beck, I’m kinda bad at this, I guess…” Eve said quietly, resting the controller on her knees as she looked down.

“Don’t say that! You’re just a beginner, so it’s natural to not know everything. Lemme show you some cool moves done by real pros - they’re even better than me,” Beck said, leaning forward to type something on the keyboard. She pulled up a couple of videos.

“So. What have you been doing with Io? Anything new?” Eve suddenly asked.

“Oh, you know. Just chillin’. All the time. Heh. Apart from working out and just, you know, doing what’s right. We helped around town, too, when they got all this renewal going on. You can also plant a tree if you want. They kinda charge quite a bit of yuan to do so, but hey. That’s kinda cool.”

“Heh, I that sounds nice. Did you-” Eve began to say.

“Yeah, and have you-” Beck also wanted to speak up, but stopped.

Ondo looked Eve in the eyes for a moment, almost noticing something there. Or so it felt.

“You go first.”

“Did you meet Gwen?”

Beck blinked a couple of times and adjusted herself on her chair.

“Yeah, she stopped by, some time after all of the stuff got back to normal. We just had a walk around town, I showed her some of the stuff I’d been working on… Io really wanted to fight her mogs, ha-ha. I didn’t let her. Though, I must admit, I was really excited for something like that. But that just didn’t seem right, somehow. Err…” she rubbed her own forehead for a moment, “But yeah. She told me how you guys met! That’s pretty lucky. Small world.”

Eve seemed like she was listening very carefully, the expression on her face not relaxed nor pleased, just focused. As soon as Beck finished explaining it all, Staccato snapped right back to her usual demeanor.

“Ha. I see. Yeah, it was really weird. I probably should visit Neo Awlins some day…”

“Mmm. I heard they hold parties. You ever been to parties, Eve?”

“Not really.

 

Nyx was almost done with her coffee. She could still feel Io staring at her, like there was something she was supposed to tell the fiery wisp.

“... You alright?”

“Me?”

“I mean, if n-n-not you, then who?”

“Uh. You!”

The Reaper’s eyes narrowed, half-closed now, as she stared back at Io.

“I g-g-guess I am.”

“I’m glad! That means you’re in great condition! Means you can fight!” Io said cheerfully, almost slamming a fist on the table. She was meaning to, several times, but somehow never did so. Deep down, she was a little bit afraid of making too much noise around Nyx. But she had to make some, right?

“I s-s-suppose. But I don’t want to fight you now,” Nyx said, letting go of her mug after a while of fiddling with it.

Io thought it was her turn, and grabbed the mug herself, and seemingly tried to imitate the way Nyx had behaved for a while sitting at that table. She even tried to make the same face. It took the Reaper a while to realize what was going on - she furrowed her eyebrows there, growling quietly.

“Stop m-m-mocking me.”

“Stop mocking me!”

“No. Don’t.”

“No! Don’t!”

Nyx suddenly stood up from her seat, snatched the empty mug from the wisp’s hands and leaned over the table, pressing the mug against Io’s head.

“D-d-don’t make me break it on your s-stupid head…” the Reaper growled through teeth, although not too loud, hoping not to disturb Eve, Beck and Klein.

Io was glimmering, shining with happiness. She was probably thinking that they were fighting, or, perhaps, had already fought in those swift couple of moments. Her eyes were locked with Ronove’s, full of… warm, welcoming flames.

 

Klein was lucky to look up at that very moment. She saw what Nyx was doing and shook her head. Later on, her eyes met with Nyx’s across the room, when the Reaper sort of spontaneously turned around in her seat in the kitchen. Klein shook her head again, and could see Ronove pull her scarf up, hiding.

She then dropped a glance at Eve and Beck. Both were now somehow sitting so close that their chairs seemed barely stable, pulled up right next to each other. Not only they were quite close, but Beck was almost blatantly leaning onto Eve with her head, showing her some weird videos on the internet about games and sports - perhaps wrestling, where their interests somewhat overlapped. Klein let out a loud breath, surprised.

“Wonder what kind of conversations you two had over these months…” she muttered quietly, and then looked down at the papers she’d been reading. In fact, she had finished quite a while ago, and was just relaxing. Now she got deep in thought, remembering those little moments - some while ago Eve started constantly checking her phone, whenever a notification came. She also began using it quite often - much more than before. Not to mention that sometimes she’d even text someone at night.

“Oh my gods,” Klein thought, chuckling to herself and closing her eyes for a bit.

 

“Yeah, so this is pretty much the best match I’ve ever seen live. Ever-ever,” Eve concluded explaining something about a video clip she was showing to Beck. Ondo nodded a couple of times, staring at the screen for a bit more.

Staccato finally noticed how close they were and almost jumped in her seat. To get the attention off that moment, she reached for her backpack.

“I-I brought you a gift, by the way,” she said, rummaging through it.

“Oh? Really? Oh damn. Sorry, I don’t have one for you, kinda. Oops. What’s the gift though?” Beck was saying, all surprised. She watched Eve desperately search for the items in her backpack.

Finally, the present was unveiled. It was…

A pretty stylish shirt from the Sunwich Shoppe. A keychain with the landscape of Sunwich on it. A little set of “100% natural” pastries, probably made by her grandpa. A nice, soft-looking towel with a star embroidered on it very carefully.

Eve’s face was getting really red. She could feel how warm it was, and she looked a bit to the side, and also rubbed it with her hand - or more, pretended to rub her own nose.

“H-here you go. I put that star there by the way. Um.”

Klein was actually standing up at this point, incredibly curious. She was pretending to be browsing through Ondo’s shelves and such, but was secretly watching them. When she saw the present, everything inside her turned. It was just a set of items from the shop. Gremory felt upset, thinking what wonderful gift she would have come up with if Eve had asked for help.

“Oh, damn! I love this shirt, Eve. It kinda looks like yours, but inverted. Damn. Should get one like that for Io, and we’ll go work out, all three of us, right? What else is here. I love this little keychain. Aw, man. I don’t really eat sweet stuff and such too much, but hey - we’ll have this as dessert today, one time won’t hurt,” Ondo was narrating every bit of the present she got from Eve, taking each item, looking at it closely, even showing it to Eve again. Beck obviously wanted Staccato to see that she likes the present. “Ah, you did this? The star on this lil’ towel?”

“Yes, that was me…” Eve said, looking down a bit and not hiding how blushy she’s got - she was actually happy now, after hearing nice words about the gift.

“That’s cool. Thanks, Eve. I promise I’ll getcha something pretty cool next time. Unless… There’s any other way I can thank you?” Ondo asked, chuckling as she carefully folded the towel and put the gift on the table carefully.

Klein, standing nearby, got even more nervous. She was openly staring at the two now, holding her breath.

“H-hah! That’s alright, Beck, you don’t have to! You’re welcome!” Eve said, as honest and kind as ever.

Gremory had a coughing fit, realizing how oblivious her conjurer was. Beck just kept smiling warmly.

 

Nyx and Io were still sitting at the table. After the little action they had, they sat a bit closer. Nyx had her arms on top of the table, and she rested her head on them, eyes half-closed as she stared at the empty mug. She shouldn’t have lashed out at Io like that.

The fiery wisp sat quite nearby, and was just watching Nyx, mainly staring at the back of her head. She liked the Reaper’s hair, and she looked quite peaceful - the urge to pat her on the head was enormous. Io only stopped herself from doing that because Nyx was her rival, after all, and quite the dangerous mogwai. Upon hearing something about gifts from the living room, she gasped.

“Ah, I should have prepared a gift for you, too!”

“Why? What for?” Nyx grumbled.

“Well. Like. You taught me a lot.”

“I p-pulled the c-core out of your chest. I stole it back t-t-then. What’s there t-to teach? What’s to learn?” the Reaper sounded quite annoyed. She didn’t like remembering the things she’d done to fellow mogwai back then.

“It made me stronger though! It motivated me. And, it’s, like, it was very exciting…”

“Calm d-down. And…” Nyx said, then followed up as quietly as possible, probably unheard by Io, “Stop already, p-please.”

Io got up and and looked around, as if trying to spot something. She shuffled from side to side, unsure where to go, then quickly ran upstairs, almost tripping over her own feet. Nyx exhaled with relief, knowing the annoying fiery wisp was gone for now.

 

“Actually, lemme try it on real quick,” Beck said, grabbing the shirt she got as a gift from Eve. She put it aside for a moment, and grabbed the bottom of her own shirt. In a quick move, she pulled it up.

That moment, instantly, Eve turned around, almost falling off her seat, covering her eyes. She mumbled a weak, pathetic “sorry!” as she did so. Somewhere in the room, Klein stared in disbelief at her conjurer.

“Well, how do I look?” Beck asked, showing off the Sunwich Shoppe shirt. It fit her quite well, and Eve was happy when she realized that.

“Yesss! It’s just your size! Ha. Yes. It looks nice on you,” Staccato said, still a bit raspy and nervous.

“Thanks, Eve. Anyway, do you wanna have a real rematch with me? I think you might be ready. Don’t tell me you’re not…” Beck said, and leaned in to stare Eve right into her eyes.

“H-ha-ha-ha, no, no… Maybe we could just…”

“Let’s fight, come on. Fight me,” Ondo pressed on.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Eve refused, almost tearing up.

“In the game, silly!”

“Oh. Alright.”

Eve stared at the screen, absent-minded, still scrolling through the events in her head. She imagined having to fight with Beck, for a bit.

 

Nyx felt something gently poke her shoulder. She got her head up, made a very displeased expression on her face and asked:

“Whaddayawant…”

Io was standing in front of her, holding something in her hands. She then extended the item towards Nyx. It was a comic book of some kind, really well-preserved.

“This is for you! It’s a gift. But! Don’t yell at me yet. It’s just…” she stopped for a bit, somewhat a rare occurrence for Io.

The Reaper stared at her, and she looked calm.

“Sorry I’m annoying. I got excited when I learned you’d come here. Please, take this? It’s one of my favourite series. I think you’ll like the characters, like, one is very much like you. She’s a villain though, but, you know! She’s not all that bad, right? I mean. You’re not bad. You’re very nice!-”

“Apology a-a-accepted,” Nyx cut Io’s speech off, and grabbed the comic book issue from her. She carefully put it on the table in front of her, and decided to browse through some pages, hoping that the fiery wisp would calm down.

 

“Alright, then let’s fight! This should be good,” Beck said, launching the game again.

Soon, Io appeared right behind them, hopping in one spot, excited.

“What battle? Are you guys fighting?”

“Yeah, Eve’s having a rematch with me in Battle Deadly 10. I’m gonna play as the Bone Baron,” Ondo announced, and pressed the button to select the dreaded skeleton character.

“Ah, Bone Baron! Bone Baron! Ohhh, he’s so strong! He’s so cool and scary, I wish I could fight him in real life!” Io cheered from the back, unnecessarily loud.

“Pretty intimidating, I admit,” Klein added. She saw Eve look back at her with utter despair in her eyes. Gremory gave her conjurer a thumbs up.

Nyx decided not to take part, and was still turning pages of the comic book, yet then somehow interested in it herself.

“I’m… Going to play as Bobby… The fighter. Here!” Eve squeezed out of herself, anxious because people were watching. Her virtual fighter appeared on the screen, throwing his weird catchphrase around.

“No way… Bobby. Fighter Bobby, that guy is a pro fighter! But he’s so bland! He’s too bland, but that’s kind of cool!”

“I could swear I’ve met this guy around a hundred times in my lifetime of bar-going… I mean. Festival-visiting. They look the same,” Klein muttered, her witty commentary soon drowning in the sounds of Io screaming at the top of her lungs - the fight had just started.

At first, it seemed as if Eve was going to lose. In the first round, she got completely obliterated by Beck, and victorious Ondo gave her mogwai a high-five. Io wasn’t ashamed to scream anything at this point, cheering for her Becky.

But then, something happened. While so close to winning the second, decisive round, Beck slipped, releasing Eve from the long combo, and somehow couldn’t defend herself against Staccato, who was desperately mashing the keys (although very gently, knowing it wasn’t her own controller), trying to fend Ondo off. The second round was won by Eve, in the end, and Io was almost down on her knees, desperate, and cursing Staccato for cheating somehow.

“Good work, Eve! Keep it up! You do that fighting move!” Klein tried to encourage her conjurer.

Eve sniffled a bit, happy that she won. She somehow got lost and thought - and didn’t realize the third round had begun, and Ondo already had downed her to 30 percent of health. Staccato gathered all of her willpower and mashed buttons even faster now, accidentally activating several strong attacks by her character. In the end, Beck was defeated - the Bone Baron fell to the ground and broke into hundred of little bones. Bobby, victorious, stood above the pile of his enemy, and said:

“You lose! I win! How about that?!”

 

Io fell down to her knees and slammed her fists on the floor, imitating crying.

“How can this be?! Bone Baron! Bone Baro-o-o-o-on! And Becky… Becky lost…”

Nyx even turned around from the comic book for a moment, bewildered. Klein pat Io on the back and helped her get up.

“That’s alright. It was a fair fight, I’m sure,” Gremory said, holding Io in her arms for a bit before letting the hyperactive wisp go.

“Wow. Man. Dude… Eve, you actually won! I can’t believe this. I guess I still have a lot to learn…” Beck said, putting the controller down. She extended her hand towards Eve, for a shake.

“I’ll train with you, Becky! You’ll become stronger!” Io could be heard in the back.

“I actually won… Oh. This is… Oh,” Eve was nervous, she put her controller aside, then grabbed Ondo’s palm with both of her hands and shook it, smiling. “I did it! Hah.”

Io suddenly decided to clap, but just for a bit, before storming off. Fight was over. She didn’t care anymore. The change in her mood made Klein laugh a bit. She still was there, nearby, idle and thinking.

“So… You won, Eve. This was exciting. Perhaps, you deserve an actual reward. After all, you’ve defeated a master at this game.”

Eve’s heart was beating very hard. She could only stare right at Ondo. Her eyes almost scanned the girl’s face, from top to bottom, stopping at Beck’s lips. They seemed a bit dry, perhaps from excited breathing while they played. Staccato felt her cheeks become warm, and soon hot again. Even her ears felt that way. She toyed with her own jacket, and her skirt, thinking.

“What can I get?”

“Well. I don’t know. What do you want?”

“No, really, a-anything? Hah.”

“I guess. Whatever,” Beck said and smiled. Again, that way. That very particular way - she always smiled like that around Eve. It felt too nice.

Staccato took a deep breath.

“A kiss.”

Klein’s eyes widened as she heard it. The cat sith, feeling like there was hope for her conjurer now, turned around and blatantly stared at the two of them.

“A kiss? Where?” Beck wanted to clarify. She sounded very quiet, almost as if she wasn’t expecting this. Taken by surprise.

…

“... T-the chee-e-e-k?” Eve squeezed out of herself, her voice cracking and sounding very weak.

Loud slap could be heard in the room. It was Klein’s palm hitting her own face and slowly sliding down.

“You’re a coward, Eve Staccato… This cannot be real…” Gremory groaned, almost audible. The couple at the computer didn’t hear her, though. She soon realized it, when she heard nothing from them for a while.

When the cat sith turned around, she saw Ondo really close to Eve, holding her by one hand, another resting on Eve’s one cheek, all while kissing her other cheek very, very gently. Staccato seemed either knocked out, lost in thought, or maybe she passed away from happiness. Thankfully, she was all fine - in fact, she came back to her senses as soon as Ondo let her go. They both sat still, looking at each other - Eve still seemed shocked, and Beck simply looked in love, and it was more than obvious to Gremory.

The cat sith decided to leave the scene for a bit. She joined the wisps in the kitchen, blinking slowly as she walked over to a fridge. Gremory opened the door and peeked inside, then grabbed a pack of juice that said “with some pulp”.

“Perfect,” she muttered quietly, opening it and taking several huge gulps from it, trying to get her thought process back on track.

“Wow, you’re thirsty!” Io said, pointing at Klein.

“I suppose so.”

“Becky will get a rematch and win anyway, by the way. Eve is cool, but Becky is the strongest at that game, ha-ha…” the fiery wisp boasted.

“I think they both won some kind of a game we didn’t understand all too well,” Klein dragged, looking to the side, at the two conjurers in the distance. They still sat the same way, now just holding hands quietly.

“What are they doing… They’re sharing power?!” Io was about to get up from the table and see what was going on. She was stopped by Nyx, who grabbed her by the arm and made her sit back down.

“D-don’t. Just leave t-t-them be. They’re… Well. Hm,” Nyx mumbled, still browsing the comic book.

Io blinked several times, fire in her eyes growing a little bit, but not coming out of control.

“O-o-oh… I see. Oh,” she said, gradually getting quieter. She kept sitting next to Nyx, poking the table with her finger and drawing invisible lines on it, deep in thought.

 

Soon, it was time for the meal. But before that, Eve got a notification on her phone. She said she had to go outside for a moment to make a call, and rushed over to the exit. Staccato hastily slipped her sneakers back on and ran outside. At the corner of the house, she saw Mott, who was wearing a funny cap and also carried a little parcel.

“Mott?!” she was surprised at first. Then, she approached and took a knee in front of him, to accept the parcel. “Since when do you work in delivery?.. I was so worried… I ordered this very, very late. Thank you, little guy!”

“Kum-pum-puchichi!”

“Yeah, sure! You take care!” Eve said, smiling bright. She finally had what she wanted to bring along all this time. The presents before were things she hastily got together to make sure she had at least something for Beck. Staccato turned around, happy, and headed for the door.

“OK bye,” a very deep voice said from behind her.

She froze, then turned her head around. Mott was slowly flying away.

“Was that… Him talking?” she wondered out loud. She shook her head, getting the thought out of her head, and then walked in. Hiding the parcel under her jacket, she carefully took her shoes off again, and almost bumped into Beck.

“Damn, nice sneakers, by the way. We should go running some day,” Ondo said, passing by.

Eve thought that she had never felt this good before. Everything suddenly was going great.

 

The meal that Beck and Io had prepared turned out to be a sort of assortment of all kinds of ingredients, prepared and edible, ready to be combined however one pleased into a salad, or some other mix. The fiery wisp usually always started the meal earlier then everyone else, but this time she was just staring down at a bowl of seaweed with sesame.

“Well, don’t mind if I do!” Klein said, going for the fish, right away.

“This looks so tasty, thank you Beck, thanks Io!” Eve said, her positive and cheerful demeanor now back completely. She picked a little bit of everything, filling her bowl.

“After all, we haven’t seen each other in such a long time. So, have a great meal, everyone,” Beck said, carefully choosing what she was going to eat.

“Cool. I like t-t-this,” Nyx muttered, filling her bowl with mostly cold foods. She noticed the seaweed bunch next to Io, and felt like it. “Could you p-p-pass that bowl, unless you’re having a s-s-staring contest with it? Please?”

Io snapped out of it, and immediately passed it over to the Reaper.

“Have a nice meal, N... Everyone!” she said, finally getting to the food.

They didn’t eat all of it, in the end - had to leave some space for dessert. Io somehow managed to chew down on even more than usual. Nyx drank around three coffee cups, and was getting ready for more, because dessert was on the way. Little pastries brought by Eve came into use well - Beck fed her a couple from her own hands, and received the same treatment. It flustered Klein, who was simply having some tea. While the two conjurers were having fun, Io managed to sneak one of the sweets out of the box, wrap it in a napkin and hide it. No one saw that.

 

The rest of the day was spent slowly - they attempted to watch a movie, but halfway through the Net connection in the house cut out. Beck was really angry about it, but Eve managed to calm her down. No one could calm down Io, however, who planned on coming to the provider’s office herself.

They also played some wacky tabletop games, including the hit card game “The One”, in which most rounds were won by Klein. She also won the title of “card game rival” from Io.

In the end, Beck and Eve went upstairs to talk about their own matters - apparently Ondo wanted her to carefully take a look at her new ideas for stories. Klein remained inside, in the kitchen, drinking juice from the pack and staring at a wall, thinking to herself. She had a very proud smile on her face, and sometimes chuckled.

Outside, it started raining. Nyx was sitting on the porch, hidden by the roof hanging above. Io was right next to her, quite close, constantly shuffling more and more backwards, to make sure she was under the roof.

“It’s dry here, d-don’t worry. You don’t l-like water?” Nyx asked suddenly.

“No.”

“It’s alright. T-the roof is fine here. You’d k-k-know.”

“It’s kinda cold too…” Io dragged, sitting more comfortably on the porch. She felt something poking her shoulder.

Nyx was offering her warm-looking coat. She just had a plain, short-sleeved shirt underneath. Io stared for a bit, then accepted the offering. The wisp hurried to put the coat on - it felt cold inside, but soon warmed up to her, and kept her so.

“Thanks. Feels so much better now!”

“You’re w-w-welcome.”

“I have something for you!”

“Another b-b-book? I already t-took one from you…” Nyx said, groaning a little bit. She turned her head a bit to the side, to look at Io, and noticed she was holding something in her hand. One of those small pastries Eve brought.

“Say ‘a-a-ah’, yeah?” Io asked, giggling to herself. She extended her arm forward, the hand holding the sweet treat very close to Nyx’s face.

The Reaper gave the fiery wisp a death stare. They sat like that, unmoving, for a while. When Nyx realized that the other mogwai didn’t intend to give up, she decided to turn away.

“I don’t w-w-want it.

“Please? You deserve it.”

“Huh?”  
“Pretty please, Nyx!”

The Reaper closed her eyes, turned around and opened her mouth. She soon felt the pastry near her mouth, and bit on it, dragging it out of the grasp of Io’s fingers. When she opened her eyes, she saw the wisp sit there with the silliest, but the purest smile on her face. And somehow, Nyx couldn’t help but smile back, chewing on the sweet.

“Thanks. C-can we just… Rest for a b-bit?”

“Rest? Like… Just sit? Sit here?”

“Yeah. Well, you c-c-can go if you don’t want.”

“No! I’ll stay. I’ll sit here with you,” Io reassured Nyx. She didn’t quite understand the concept, but she had seen Ronove behave this way many times, and she understood that the Reaper needed this sort of time quite often. She decided to give it a shot herself, and shuffled a bit closer to the fellow wisp.

 

It looked just the way Eve last saw it - a room sparkling with all the various medals and trophies hung on walls, standing on shelves. This time, however, it seemed as if Beck had spent time cleaning up all the books and putting them in one spot as opposed to having them scattered all around the place. Beck offered Eve to sit at her desk - she was about to show Staccato her new ideas.

The truth was, Eve and Beck had been mostly chatting online before this visit, and chatting about quite a lot. Staccato looked forward to seeing Ondo’s new drafts - she even included some funny doodles sometimes, as well as additional text with possible developments of the story.

“It’s cozy here. I hope you can visit my place some time. But I’ll have to clean up a lot…”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. It’s alright. Here! Look at this,” Beck said, handing over several paper sheets to Eve. She stood next to her, as Staccato examined the material. There were several new characters in the story, both good and rather evil. One of the “good guys” was a girl who looked a lot like… Eve.

“Oh Beck… Did you put me in your story?” the young conjurer asked, turning around a bit to look at Ondo.

She was blushing a bit, chuckling.

“Well… Guess you figured that out. Heh. Yeah. I kinda. Kinda thought it’d be funny. But I also wanna keep it like that.”

“That’s alright! I’m fine with this. I’ve never been in a book…” Eve said, wondering, smiling softly as she browsed through the papers again.

“Well. You might end up in history books. I guess.”

“Oh, those are kinda… Boring. But I’ll give them a read.

“Heh! You’re honest. But we gotta know it, regardless. I just hope that… We’ll still hang out, even if you’re so busy now, as the ambassador and all,” Beck said, walking around her room slowly. She stopped.

Eve put the papers down. She reached for her backpack, where she hid the parcel after bringing it into the house. Staccato ripped it open and handed the item inside over to Beck, saying nothing.

“Wait a minute… This is…” Ondo muttered, looking at the gift.

It was a book. The main present Eve wanted to get to Beck.

“Oh, Eve, you really shouldn’t have! It was probably expensive?! It’s huge… And has pictures in it. From the author of three best sellers, award-winning writer from Neo Awlins, B. O. Mann! Well now… This is going to bring me to a new level, huh?” Beck recited all she could see on the cover of the book. She sounded very pleased. Even a bit touched by the gift.

“I love y… Your writing. But I thought you’d like this book, because I saw books by this author in your room, and you mentioned reading something from him,” Eve explained, a bit sheepishly.

“Thank you,” Beck said, putting the book carefully aside for now. “Um. So… Do you wanna try that thing we talked about?”

Eve nodded.

 

Outside, the rain had calmed down a while ago. Nyx slowly fell asleep without realizing, and her head was resting on Io’s lap. The fiery wisp was feeling on top of the world, staring down at Nyx’s sleepy face in awe. She even managed to stroke Ronove’s hair just a little bit, curious, but mostly sat still, hoping the Reaper gets some rest.

Somehow, a feeling much more than the drive and excitement of rivalry grew within her. Like a big, big fire, but it didn’t burn, it didn’t melt - it would sting from time to time, yet mostly warm her up from inside.

She wanted to tell Nyx a lot, but knew she couldn’t. Perhaps, it just wasn’t the time yet. Io knew she had to work not only on getting stronger, but on getting her point across to Ronove.

 

In the kitchen, Klein drank all of the juice. The one with “some pulp” was her absolute favourite, and although she felt a bit guilty for robbing the Ondo household of it, in the end she felt too good to complain and feel disappointed. Moreover, she witnessed something really uplifting today, something happy. Something she hadn’t felt the right way in a while. Yet, she was happy her conjurer could finally enjoy another part of life, earlier unexplored.

 

In Beck’s room, both conjurers were on top of the bed. Ondo was lying there, head propped by the pillow, holding one of her drafts in her one hand. Her other arm was wrapped around Eve, who was sort of lying right on top of her, snuggled up, listening to Beck gently read her own stories out loud. The lights in the room were a bit dim now, and they both enjoyed the silence in the house. They both enjoyed themselves, each other.

It was Eve’s idea she somehow brought up in one of their online conversations jokingly, yet Beck agreed to it. It was awkward, no doubt about it, at first, but they got used to it quickly.

Gradually, Beck got more and more tired of reading out loud, slowing down quite a bit. At some point she simply stared at the papers in her hands for a while. Until she saw that Eve, apparently, fell asleep right on top of her.

Beck shuffled in bed, carefully letting Staccato slide off her and helping her lie down right next to her. She looked at Eve, who was so calm, asleep. Beck leaned in and gave her a little kiss on the forehead, before closing her eyes as well.


End file.
